The parsimony of economic theory provides general insights into an otherwise complex world. However, the most straightforward organizing principles from theory have not often taken hold in environmental policy or in the decentralized climate policy regime that is unfolding. One reason is...

In this paper I theoretically argue that people weigh specialization gains against trade costs when they decide whether to specialize and trade or self-produce all goods by themselves. Trade costs relate to institutional quality. Thus, more people participate in trade under better institutions....

The globalisation of the economy goes along with numerous kinds of uncertainty and requires adequate institutional designs in order to avoid disadvantageous situations from the actors' points of view. Institutional designs usually consist of a mix of different institutions that are adapted to...

A large literature details the causes and consequences of incarceration. This study evaluates the role of economic freedom in this context using US Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) data from 1977 to 2017. To do so, we implement economic freedom scores at the MSA level derived from Stansel...

This paper introduces and describes a new city-level data set on political institutions in pre-modern Europe. To be precise, it presents three variables reporting the prevalence of the different existing types of participative political institutions between 800 AD and 1800 AD in 104 cities in...

This toolkit contains the elements needed to understand the problem of medical malpractice in America today, and whether alternative dispute resolution (i.e., arbitration) clauses might be viable among other tort reform options. The toolkit introduces medical liability as an intrinsic component...

Global governance institutions for climate change, such as those established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, have so far failed to make a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Following the lead of Elinor Ostrom, this paper offers an...

As the 2008 financial crisis spread globally, it became widely apparent that an essential ingredient to preventing future systemic crises was reform of the regulation of financial markets. Two ambitious initiatives for regulatory reform are the European Union's European System of Financial...

What is it about federal governance that makes it so attractive to economists, political philosophers, and legal scholars and is there any evidence that would suggest all this attention is warranted? Proponents see federalism as a means to more efficient public and private economies, as the...

This article examines what may be taken into account, when designing a mechanism of international public finance to support south-north cooperation on domestic climate policies in developing countries. We draw lessons from existing mechanisms of conditional transfers. Experience with...